Curious Beasts
by BecauseReasons
Summary: The Avengers are shorthanded and the team is falling apart. Tony hatches a plan and Rory could be the answer to their prayers, if a certain Norse God doesn't get to her first. Choosing sides isn't easy when the darkness is so appealing. Staying good is hard when you were born to be a monster. Eventual Loki/OC. Rated M for language. Title may change.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Marvel Universe. Nothing belongs to me except a few OC's

**Summary: **The Avengers are shorthanded and the team is falling apart. Tony hatches a plan and Rory could be the answer to their prayers, if a certain Norse God doesn't get to her first. Choosing sides isn't easy when the darkness is so appealing. Staying good is hard when you were born to be a monster. Eventual Loki/OC

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"Tony! Watch your back! Yo-"

A full second too late, Tony span around, palms outstretched to deflect an attack. What felt like a fourteen-wheel truck with a drunken suicide bomber trainee at the wheel slammed into the iron-encased man with crushing force. The universe was momentarily transformed into a swirl of slate gray as Tony spun in mid-air, slamming into the concrete with crushing force.

"Hey look, Cap. The sparkles are back!" Tony let out a giddy giggle. The back of his head, the logical, billionaire scientist part of his cortex was recognizing the onset of shock. He was running on pure adrenaline at this point. That and a shot of vodka…okay maybe a few shots. But it was a Tuesday, he was celebrating! Or he had been, before the Construction Buddies…the…the Tractor Weenies, whatever these chumps called themselves went out looking for a fight.

Well, really they were out looking for Thor. But the oversized, drape-wearing Asgardian Thunder God wasn't available at the moment (by that meaning that he was on his home planet, no doubt scrunching his eyebrows pitifully over his megalomaniac troublemaker of a younger brother and doing whatever it was him and his World of Warcraft character pals got up to) so those Avengers that were present had decided to take a message for him, so to speak. They seemed to be having fun writing that message all over Tony in bruises, and possibly a mild concussion.

Currently, they were getting their asses handed to them. But in their defense, they were short half of the team so it wasn't really a fair fight. So they weren't really _losing. _They just were failing to succeed, as Tony would put in about a week later, still extremely bothered by the unfair odds. Bruce had disappeared in the middle of the night (again) about a month ago, sure to pop up again eventually. Thor, as mentioned above was attending to business elsewhere and Natasha was god knows where. "_Level 9 clearance," _she'd smirked at Clint the night before, who'd pouted when she'd wagged her credentials in his face and taken off without him, doing god knows what for the ever-mysterious S.H.I.E.L.D.

So far that left Clint, Tony, and Steve. The former was out of explosive arrows and barely staying out of range of the house of a man that was hot on his tail. He was dodging attacks aimed at him by what looked like a demolition ball on a chain by mere inches, and probably wouldn't hold up much longer.

Tony was trying without much success to pry himself out of an Iron Man shaped impression in the street. "Exterminate" he laughed dryly, getting a good look at what'd knocked the daylights out of him for the first time. A gigantic man, in a yellow suit was racing towards him, gearing up for another round of slamming Tony in the concrete. His head, wrists, and ankles were covered in metal armor, which was decorated with round knobs. He looked like the spitting image of a of a Dalek cosplay costume.

Tony would have found that a lot funnier if said Dalek wasn't currently bearing down on him at breakneck speed with ice cold murder glinting in his eyes. Unfortunately his brillaint joke was wasted on Hawkeye, who was too busy dodging a metal dome of doom to afford any distraction, and Steve, who wouldn't have understood the reference anyways, even if he hadn't been taking on two beefed-up blokes at once. One was using his giant hands to rain down shattering blows on captain's shield. The metallic shriek echoed off of the concrete New York intersection, serving as a warning bell to anyone who hadn't had the common sense to get out of the way of the brawl. The other, decked in darker attire, was trying to get at Steve with a crowbar, aiming for any opening he could find as Captain America played defensive to the onslaught of attacks aimed at him from all directions.

From where he was lying flat on the ground, sunk into the asphalt, Tony lifted his head up, trying to get a good look at the giant Dalek-man taking a run at him. At the last possible second he shot off a beam from his hand straight into the middle of the guy, sending him flying so hard he made a dent in a streetlight. At this point any second he got where he wasn't getting pummeled was dumb luck on his part. Without the rest of their team, they were just weak enough to have to play constant defense. That lucky shot may have been just what they might have needed to turn the fight their way. Tony made a valiant effort to get off the ground while ignoring the fact that there were currently three Steve's and somewhere between 5 and 6 baddies in his immediate line of vision.

He sent another blast of energy from his palms at a rather nice convertible parked by where Hawkeye was being battered by another baddie with an over -glorified nun chuck, sending the car flying and flipping through the air. It landed on the metal-head with a satisfying crunch, hopefully putting him out of commission long enough for the Avengers to take control of the situation again.

Clint wasted no time, not even hesitating to sprint over to help out Steve, who was looking more outnumbered by the second. He ran past each of the giant hulkmen that were battering Steve's shield and slapped each on the back, hard. Tony propped himself against a nearby mailbox with one hand, clutching his side with the other. He tilted his head to one side, puzzled. Did Clint really think that giving them tiny pats was going to-

_Beep beep…beep beep…BOOM!_

Oh. Tony didn't have any time to react as the hand-detonator bombs went off. Surprisingly, instead of blowing them to bits, it sent out an electric jolt and a ton of smoke, which was apparently laced with some chemical, because both of the thugs slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Tony flipped back his Iron Man Helmet, revealing his face. He threw his arms up in a gesture of victory, letting out a wild whoop. "Yeah! Go Avengers!" Clint returned his whoop, hopping up to slap Tony on the hand. Though they were both winded, and Tony was positive he was going to have bruises for weeks, they weren't getting their asses kicked anymore, which was something to celebrate in Tony's book.

"I wouldn't celebrate if I were you. There's no reason to be proud, guys. We barely won," Steve cut in, slumping to the ground next to the two unconscious members of the Wrecking Crew. He let his shield fall to the ground next to him, rubbing his temple roughly. Tony's Dalek was still bent into a lamp post, moaning quietly. There was no sound from the wrecked car as of yet.

"We were missing half the team! What'd you expect would happen?" Tony retaliated. "Why are you always such a party pooper, Cap? The glass is half full! Live a little!" Thor and Hulk were the two big "smash-em-up" guys on the team- not that Tony couldn't hold his own. Dealing with the Wrecking Crew was something that took more brawn than brains. With the odds, Tony was surprised they'd all come out of it without someone needing to be put in the hospital. Any day he wasn't dead was a celebration, in his opinion. Leave it to Steve to make it into a serious issue though.

"Seems like we're always missing half of the team these days," Clint added solemnly, looking at the utter wreck around him.

"Oh no, Clint. Not you too. Don't tell me you're with him!" Clint responded with a despondent look at the destroyed street around them. Tony hurried to defend his views. "You and Natasha have to put S.H.I.E.L.D first, and we knew that when you guys started that that was how it was gonna work unless there was another world domination plot in the works. Thor has his other kingdom to take care of and that's totally not his fault. And Bruce is just…Bruce. It's not their fault but – shit." Tony fell silent. He would never admit that Steve was right but…Steve was right.

They'd used to be a team – what happened?

Tony sighed and gave Steve a hand up. Neither of the two men said a word, but words weren't needed. He could see his determination mirrored in the super soldier's blue eyes. They'd been barely winning their fights as of late and something needed to be done about it. Tony hauled Steve to his feet – something he'd never be able to do without his suit. Over his shoulder, his eyes met Clint and the two exchanged grim smiles. It took a lot for Tony to admit that he needed help and god damn it all they needed help badly.

Whatever it took, they'd fix this mess.

Clint came to Tony's aid and the two of them helped the limping super soldier down the street. They left the moaning Wrecking Crew for Fury to clean up. No doubt he'd been watching the whole pathetic fight and hadn't missed the fact that the Avengers had won by the skin of their teeth. No doubt it wouldn't go down well with the director that his best response team had basically got the crud kicked out of them.

The three men walked off together, headed to the tower they'd all come to see as home. For a long time, the only sound on the empty street was the metallic hiss of Tony's boots scraping the sidewalk and the _thump, tsss _of Steve limping down the deserted street. Clint, who was generally silent as a cat as a general rule, let out the occasional sharp intake of breath as Steve's heaving sides slammed into his own fresh bruises.

Tony Stark didn't do pathetic, and right now, they were pathetic. He couldn't stand the thought of being bested by those dunce caps. A glance at his teammates sent his blood boiling again. He'd make sure this was fixed, and he wouldn't sleep until he had a plan to do so. As the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist of the group, it was only natural that he would be the one to solve the problem.

"Jarvis?" The words sounded unnaturally loud in the dead silence of the street. He winced as his words bounced back at him in echoes. He felt bad breaking the solemn brotherly hero silence-thing that they'd had going on but this was important.

"Yes, sir."

"Has Pepper found my stash of alcohol in the lab yet?"

"No, sir. The fridge is still fully stocked."

"Good. Make sure that it stays that way, Jarvis. It's gonna be a long night"

"Right, sir."

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks to my wonderful beta LadyofMischiefandDeduction for checking this over for me. Next chapter will be up Friday or Saturday. Reviews are always appreciated, loves.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Marvel Universe. Nothing belongs to me except a few OC's

**Summary: **The Avengers are shorthanded and the team is falling apart. Tony hatches a plan and Rory could be the answer to their prayers, if a certain Norse God doesn't get to her first. Choosing sides isn't easy when the darkness is so appealing. Staying good is hard when you were born to be a monster. Eventual Loki/OC

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Approximately ten hours and six or seven drinks later, Tony was at a loss for ideas. He'd turned over the issue what seemed like hundreds of times in his head. He'd taken it apart mentally, like one of his inventions. Separated the motor into parts and checked each one to find the lose gear. But there wasn't a lose gear in the motor this time. It was just a shitty motor to begin with.

Fact was, while the Avengers couldn't act as an effective response team without having more members, he couldn't get more participation out of the current members without asking them to give up too much for the team. Thor and Natasha already had lives. He couldn't ask them to give up everything to act as dancing monkeys for Nick Fury's hero squad. And Bruce…Bruce took time off because he needed it to maintain control over himself. No one was benefitting from asking him to stick around more often. The Avengers didn't really provide a "stress-free environment" what with Tony's excessive playboy tendencies, two assassins, two gamma ray lab-rat supermen and a Norse god running around.

But above all that, they had to keep people safe. That was what they were there for. As much as he mocked Steve for his moral virgin hero act, Tony felt as indebted to the people as Captain did. Maybe more, because he was fueled by a partially-selfish need to pay back the debt he felt he owed humanity for spending most of his life creating weapons to destroy them.

Tony ran his hands over his mouth, eyes locked on the screen in front of him. For hours, he'd been replaying the briefing file Fury had given him months ago. Hulk, Hawk-Eye, Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, and Himself, suit dented with battle scrapes. The images played over the screen, each clip battling for his attention. There had to be an answer somewhere.

Someone tapped urgently on the glass window to the lab, and Tony shot up straight. He hadn't noticed how long he'd been leaning forward towards the screen until his muscles screamed in protest to the sudden movement. Clint stood with his hands on the glass, a bag of Cheese-Puffs in hand.

"Nice Band-Aid," Tony pressed the buzzer to unlock the door, pointing at the Iron Man Band-Aid covering a slice on Clint's cheekbone from the fight earlier. Tony made sure that the house was stocked with Band-Aids. Only the ones with him on it though. It _was _his house, after all.

Clint sauntered over to the screen, licking Cheese dust off of his fingers. He gestured to the screen loosely. "You still have these old things?" He leaned in closer on the clip of himself and Natasha, fighting back to back. "Want one?" Clint offered the bag to Tony, who tipped his drink in response. Clint shrugged, as if to say, _your loss _and dove his bruised fingers in for another handful.

The two men stood in silence for a few moments, watching the screen side by side. "So you're stuck, then?" Clint asked, sending Tony a sideways glance out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey now," Tony gestured at himself, eyebrows raised, "genius here. I'll fix it. You can't rush perfection, Barton and we all know I am _perfect_."

Clint chose to laugh instead of offering a response. Tony decided to take that as an agreement. "Man, how long have you been watching this stuff? Take a break before your brain fries," The S.H.I.E.L.D agent picked up the remote from the screen off of the table, where it'd been perched on top of a dirty wine glass. With a few clicks, he'd switched it to a news station. Hand still in the Cheese Puff bag, Clint took his leave, throwing a warning to not stay up to late over his shoulder to Tony.

No matter how long he locked himself in his lab, one of the team always came down to check on him. It was one of the nicer things about having the Avengers together, though Tony would never admit how much he liked that they cared enough to pop in and make sure he was okay.

The Billionaire leaned back in his chair, folding his fingers and resting the tip of his chin on them with a sigh. Fine, he'd watch the news. It wasn't like he was getting anywhere with this anyways. He folded his arms and sat back, watching the news broadcast report.

A picture of a swat team in some west coast area flashed on the screen, with a voice overlay of a woman relaying the facts of the event. The swat team was struggling to contain something that was moving too fast for the camera to catch. "Witnesses reported sightings of what is being called "Quick Silver" along the west coast. The species or nature of the recent sightings remains unknown, though police are trying their best to track what they believe may be another mutant sighting in Boston,"

Tony sighed. The outbreak of "superhuman individuals" was spreading. The Avengers were the most prominent due to their rescue of New York City, but groups like the Wrecking Crew and untrained individuals with powers they couldn't control were threating to make it a real issue. The police had tried to contain the mess where the Avengers couldn't but it was getting harder and harder every day.

"Franco County Police forces have chosen to expand their forces by calling in officers from other districts in the hopes that they can hold their own against these mysterious thefts-"

Tony paused as the clip ended and the shot returned to the Anchorman in the studio. "Wait, Jarvis. Rewind that, will you? Yeah right-stop. Right there."

Tony pressed play on the remote. "County Police forces have chosen to expand their forces by calling in-"

He rewound the clip again, "Chose to expand their forces by calling in-"

"Expand their forces-"

"Expand-"

That was it. That was fucking it. Tony let out a wild whoop, exalted after hours of careful consideration. He drew his hands against the holographic screen, emptying it of everything but his screensaver, and then swiped again, pulling up a web browser.

"Jarvis, call Fury and tell him that we need to talk." He let out another mad giggle. Oh, he was brilliant. He was so, so _brilliant._

* * *

"No."

"But if you would just lis-"

"No. You swagger into _my _office every couple of months and waste _my _time rattling on about some stupid-ass idea that does nothing but cause me grief. _Hell _no."

"Can you just-"

"_HELLL No. _You've got two of my best agents, a Norse god, an overstressed rage monster that could level this whole city in a matter of days if you rub him the wrong way, that suit that I _should have _taken away from you years ago because the government is still on my ass about making that technology public, and the only successful super-soldier that S.H.I.E.L.D ever produced. You've got your little playhouse with your happy fun pals and ya'll laze around for weeks and then flounce out every few months or so and get in _my _way, undermine _my _orders and then wreck the city leave _my _agents to clean up after you and you want me to give you an unstable teenage _mutant _to train and add to that clusterfuck you call a team?" Fury was standing up now, the area around his eye patch turning purple with pent-up rage. His face was so close to Tony's that he could see the spit sitting on his bottom lip. "I repeat: _HELL. NO."_

It was safe to say that the meeting hadn't gone _quite _as Tony would have liked so far. He'd imagined that Fury would totally see the logic in his idea, and then there would be a nice press release, a party, maybe a parade, and they would find someone to add to the team and then suddenly the Avengers would be back to kicking ass. Not so. While it had taken Clint, Tony, and Steve about a half a day to nurse their bruised egos and get over their latest pathetic attempt at saving the city, Fury was still quite livid about the whole deal.

But the thing was that Tony _had _thought this out before he came in to talk to Fury. At least three members of the avengers were completely human and totally mortal. They were going to need someone young to hand the reins to at some point. Natasha and Clint weren't going to be much use when they were 90, right? This was going to be something they'd have to do eventually, right? Why not make that decision now, when Tony was capable of keeping up with a younger new team member and they desperately needed some extra help around? Plus, one more superhero on the Avengers was one less mutant causing destructive negative media for all of them.

He'd gotten up early, only had _one _glass of wine, and even picked up a coffee for Fury as a brib- uh, erm peace offering. Too bad the head of S.H.I.E.L.D had eaten a whole bowl of grumpy-oats for breakfast this morning and didn't want to hear it. But then again, when did Fury ever actually listen to what he wanted? Never. Except, of course when he was using Tony as a pawn to get to something else. Then he was all ears until everything blew up in their faces and he ran off with whatever he wanted out of the deal and disappeared until he needed Tony again. Come to think of it, why did he even come here? _I don't even _like _Fury._

"What would you even do with a teenager, Stark? I shudder to think of the kinds of things you could teach a kid in a high-tech super tower with an alcohol supply that'd put any liquor store to shame,"

"Hey hey hey!" Tony poked a finger at Fury, casually withdrawing it quickly when Fury narrowed his eyes, "This isn't about me. It's about protecting people,"

"No, it's about you wanting fresh meat to torment me with, and I'll be damned if I give you access to S.H.I.E.L.D files so you can just do something we're both going to regret."

Tony sighed, deeply, like the long-suffering hero that he was. That's what he got for trying to play nice. Tony patted Fury on the cheek with mock affection. What Fury didn't know is that Tony could hack into his entire spy network at any given moment. He'd been trying to dodge a bullet by asking but obviously he was going to have to take things into his own hands here. "Okay, Patchy. Whatever, sorry to bother you," he smile sweetly at Fury.

Casually, he reached over to the coffee he'd placed next to Fury's computer when he'd first entered the room. "I'm taking my coffee back. No caffeine for Grumpasaurus Rex," he teased lightly. Leaving Fury stunned and more than a bit suspicious, Tony grabbed his briefcase and exited the room with a jaunty wave, leaving the tall black man to fall into his chair, holding his temples with a deep sigh. He was too busy being confused by how easy it was to get Tony to back down to notice the small probe crawling into the USB slot on the side of his computer.

Like Tony said, he could hack the mainframe any time he wanted to.

* * *

**A/N: **Yes! This is early because I have no patience. Thanks for my lovely beta LadyofMischefandDeduction and to you for reading. Chapter 3 should be out in a few days, and it introduces the OC, Rory, which is exciting, no? Reviews are mucho beuno c:


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Marvel Universe. Nothing belongs to me except a few OC's

**Summary: **The Avengers are shorthanded and the team is falling apart. Tony hatches a plan and Rory could be the answer to their prayers, if a certain Norse God doesn't get to her first. Choosing sides isn't easy when the darkness is so appealing. Staying good is hard when you were born to be a monster. Eventual Loki/OC

**Edit: **Sorry if this resends the chapter to your boxes! I'm making a brief edit concerning Rory's last name. I'd picked a surname at random and was notified of where I'd gotten it from - Irene Adler from the Sherlock series. Whoops. Rory Adler is now Rory Cooper, and I've also changed her father's first name because Fred Cooper didn't sit well with me. Sorry for the inconvenience!

* * *

**Chapter 3**

"Shh, Da, shhh hush please," Rory tried fervently to tuck her father back into bed, to little avail. Her expression betrayed only calm concentration but her hands were shaking too violently to grasp the bed sheets and even in his sickness, Dr. Cooper could break her fragile grasp with ease. He did so, leaving her grabbing uselessly at his shoulder and pajama sleeve and empty air.

Every time the sirens ran through the New York City, no matter what he was currently absorbed in, Dr. Barney Cooper ran to the windows, or outside if he could get to it. Left to his own devices, he would have run out into the street in various states of undress and chase down every ambulance in the district. It was futile to try to calm him, but Rory couldn't help but try every time. It was horrible, but she hoped that one day his disease might steal that memory too. Even now, they had no peace from it. Moving cities hadn't eased the hurt she'd hoped to heal quicker than time was allowing.

He pulled at the curtains gently; curling his fingers around the coarse fabric like it was a lifeline. "Mary. Mary," he whimpered; his voice eerily childlike for that of an older man. He didn't look at her, his gaze locked on the ambulance as it wheeled around a corner, out of sight.

Straight-backed and unbreakable Rory keeled over in half, suddenly crooked with pain. As much as anyone, she'd been grieving in the most painful way. It had locked into her body, twisting her heart and making her limbs heavy and sore with it. "No. No Mary. She's not coming back."

"Back!" he repeated indignantly, pulling on the curtain violently.

Sighing, Rory untangled herself from her grief and curled her hand around his, rubbing it gently as she freed the curtains from his tight grip, rubbing each finger free one by one with the fluidity of many long nights of practice. "Don't you know? Have you forgotten that too now, Da?" Finally, she got his grip loosened, and pulled the hand to her mouth, kissing the knuckles gently. She pressed it against her cheek, seeking comfort but finding none. He was no longer able to help her. Now it was him that couldn't take care of himself, him that needed soothing. "Don't you know she's gone?"

He finally allowed her to pull him to bed and tuck him in. She pushed the sides of the blanket into the cracks between the mattress and the bed frame violently, hoping that it would stop him from moving in his sleep. Perched on the side of the bed, she took his hands and clipped the nails, rubbing them soothingly even as hers continued to tremble. She murmured to him as she worked, lulling him into enough of a stupid that he let her lotion his hands and put the fuzzy socks designed to keep him from scratching himself on with little complaint.

She stood and wrapped herself in the kitted throw over the footboard of his bed, which is big enough for two. Around her shoulders it goes, smothering her with the scent of old people and dust – but she's used to it now. It smells like home. She meanders her way into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee that ultimately sits listlessly in front of her at the counter. Its several minutes of silence before she begins to cry and fold up inside again. She bent over her hot cup, face cupped in her hands. She sits in silence except for the occasional sharp intake of breath and the gentle tremor of her shoulders as sobs assault her lungs.

She falls asleep like that; bent over with buried pain until the wee hours of the morning. On another day, her father might have stepped downstairs as dawn broke to wake her, lead her to her bed and bundle her away. But he's as broken as she is now, so she wakes alone, coffee cup sticky with a layer of cream stuck to the top, wondering why, at 19, she's suddenly got the world on her shoulders. Wondering where everything went so wrong.

* * *

The morning was a brief struggle to get her father up, fed, and situated in his room with a bunch of DVD's. He was basically reliant on Rory for most things but he still had enough of his wits to switch the disks in the player periodically. With aching slowness, he pulled out three movies to last him until she sprinted back on her lunch break to feed him lunch.

Rory had one eye on the clock as he slowly reached for _Becoming John Malcovitch, Black Swan, _and _Flags of our Fathers _out of the stack of DVD's. She popped the first one in for him, kissed him on the forehead, and was gone, locking the bedroom door behind her as she left. _He really ought to have a 24 hour nurse, the way he's in. But- _she fumbled in the pocket of her cargo shorts for her wallet, peering again inside like the contents had changed. Her metro card was the only useful item inside, stuffed in hastily the evening before next to a picture of a smiling woman in the picture slot of the leather wallet. She sighed. They'd have the money someday. _Until then, we struggle. _

There was a hint of autumn chill in the morning air. Rory let a rare grin light up her face at the thought. At the zoo, summer not only brought heat, but heaps of New York tourists and their whining smelly kids. Once the crows subsided to let the fall field-trip season begin, she could relax a little and actually focus on enjoying her job.

Two trains and a short walk later and she was rounding the corner to the Bronx zoo. The security guard posted shot her a knowing look as she sped through the parking tolls, pulling out her phone to check the time.

"You better run, Bushwilly. Clock's ticking!"

Rory flipped him off without missing a beat of her furious speed-walk down the pavement. "Suck it, George!" They were friends.

Past the ticket gate and she broke out into an all-out run. After weeks of having to make a mad dash to get in, she took the corners like a pro, squeezing through the people that had already begun to filter into the gates in the early morning chill. She skidded into the staff building, slowing down at the last second to a leisurely walk. She tucked in her uniform shirt, blew out a puff of air, and wiped a few sweaty orange locks from her forehead before peering around the entryway into the kitchen. Her eyes scanned the empty room, and she let out a puff of air in relief. _Whew, safe. _

She stepped inside the doorway, and made it about two feet in before the hair on the back of her neck went up. _Shit._

"You're late."

_Shitshitshitshit. _Her supervisor, the head zookeeper, Liam caught her shoulder with a firm grip, his gray eyes stern. Rory tried her best to wiggle out of his iron grip, sliding downwards. "Look, kid. I know you've got trouble at home, and you're great at your job. But you don't show up on time and you're unprofessional. I can't keep turning a blind eye,"

Rory knitted her eyebrows, her amber colored eyes suddenly round as saucers. "Trouble?" she tilted her head at him, her face earnest and open "at home? What are you talking about?"

"Yeah right. Whatever." Liam had pretty much given up on trying to get straight answers out of Rory. She'd dropped in out of nowhere, barely 18 and fresh out of high school, begging for a job as a keeper. He'd turned her down, naturally. They'd had plenty of maintenance work open but the position she wanted required a college degree. After a week of begging and following him to and from his car all day he'd finally yielded and told her she could have a trial internship position and _if _he was impressed by her, she could stay.

She'd maintained the entire time that she could do a better job than anyone on his staff, and dammit she was right. The animals just melted around her. She had a magic touch and to be honest he found it quite spooky, but after almost a year she'd proven to be an invaluable member of the team. She'd gone from intern to flamingo keeper in less time than it took to even get a qualifying degree, and she wasn't slowing down. Outside of work, she was useless and moody. She didn't even turn her head if not doing so wouldn't affect her paycheck. Still, he bet, she could have his job in a few years easily.

On top of all of that, she was always late, and treated the other staff members with a kind of haughtiness one reserves for the simpleminded. She deflected all questions, never talked about herself, and didn't have the patience to listen to anyone else talk about themselves. She wasn't well-liked at the zoo. No one liked being upstaged by a girl a fraction of their age. The only thing worse was being upstaged by a girl a fraction their age who was a total bitch all the time.

"I'm serious, Victoria. I can't keep letting you waltz in whenever you like. I'll put you on temporary suspension if you don't start getting here on time,"

"Looook," she sing-songed over him, dashing over to the fridge and taking out a foul-smelling bowl shrimp and a knife "I'm working, I'm working. I'll feed the flamingoes and then take them on the parade and you can sit back and relax and go 'ge golly I'm glad I hired that girl' like I know you do every day and I won't be late tomorrow, okay?"

Silently, Liam watched her furiously chop up the morning meal for her pack of flamingoes for a few moments, then took his leave, satisfied. "Be on time tomorrow, Cooper," he threw over his shoulder with a frown.

"_Be on time tomorrow, Cooper,_" she mocked under her breath in a high, girly voice. Rory sniffed pompously. "Asshat." In truth, she liked Liam. He was a decent guy for giving her the chance and everything. This place was the reason she could afford to keep her and her father off of the streets. And despite her nasty attitude, she liked the work. She was good with animals in a way that she had never been with people. Animals were her "thing" so to speak. Her niche, if you wanted to put it lightly.

Presently she finished preparing the food and took it out to the enclosure to feed the flock. She talked to them in low coos as she feed them, not unlike their own squacks back and forth. Though she was brisk and stern with them, she was gentle in a way she wasn't around the other staff members or anybody else save her father. As much as she might try to wave it off she could tell every single flamingo apart on sight. They were her children, until she was moved on to something bigger. She had her eyes on being a foster parent, or maybe an elephant keeper, if she was so lucky.

After feeding she was supposed to walk the flamingoes through the zoo in what they called the "Flamingo Parade." Considering the birds were harmless, it was a fun way for being to get closer than normal to the vibrant birds. For Rory, it was a strain on her nerves. Everyone wanted to stop and ask questions about the birds and it killed her to be nice, it really did.

She rushed through the parade, trying her best to look too preoccupied by herding the birds to bother with questions, and for the most part it worked, except for some dumb kid with sticky fingers who wanted to know why the birds were pink. God did these people even read?

She cleaned the enclosure and watered the birds then took a lunch break as the morning chill fizzled into a blinding heat. She was licking her fingers of the gooey mess that was a chocolate chip cookie when all hell broke loose without warning.

There were the hairs on the back of her neck again. Something was wrong, she could feel it. Her fears were given ground as two or three people ran past her perch on top of a bench at full speed. She looked up, curious, the smell of their panic hitting her in waves. Then shortly after a few more people came sprinting past and the dull roar of an excited crowd reached her ears. _Jesus Chrits I can't even eat in peace. _With a world weary groan, she stood up and threw the remainder of her lunch into the nearest trash bin. She took off at a half-hearted jog towards the source of the sound, following her sharp ears. A few turns in, she got the general idea of where the fuss was leading her to – the elephant cages.

Rory broke out into a full out sprint, fearing the worst: an injured animal, spectator's thowing food and rocks at the beasts, an all-out brawl between the females, possibly. The elephant exhibit was a rounded deep pit with a low fence around it for the zoo visitors to watch the giant beats roam around. It was safe for anyone generally. This was one of those exceptions. She turned the corner to find one of the most heart-stopping scenes anyone could render in the zoo. A blonde toddler, about four or five, had slipped past the waist-high fence and fallen into the pit below. The small body sat there, unmoving, as a nervous gaggle of people crowded around in increasing numbers, camera phones and video recorders at the ready.

The body was so still that at first Rory feared she'd broken her spine on impact. One of the older elephants, a scarred, ugly thing called Penelope had wandered over, poking at the small body with her trunk. Penelope was acquired from a circus that had been shut down due to the quality and condition of its performing animals about five years back. She was the sweetest thing in the world, but scarred from whip lashes and various beatings. The zoo had been working with her for years to get her to be a stable, normal elephant but even now she was easily spooked. Penelope was the main reason why Rory was keen to become an elephant handler. The doe-eyed gentle giant had stolen her heart.

Someone Rory assumed was the mother of the child let out a brutal shriek, slicing the tension in the air with the sheer force of the sound. The child stirred and sat up blearily. From a distance Rory watched as the small face squinted at the giant gray mass poking at it. The baby scrunched up its face, and Rory started running, shoving her way through the crowd. _Oh fuck just please don't- _

She was almost to the waist-length fence when the child let out a cry. The initial scream molded into a high-pitched wail. It completely blocked out the horrible shriek the mom had made earlier. It was in a completely different category of loud. Rory was frozen, hoping against hope that for once, Penelope would stay calm.

No such luck. The beast's tail went up and it took a dozen wobbly steps back, ears open, trunk up, and tail waving up like a flag. You didn't have to be an expert to know that that was elephant for "freaking the fuck out and totally about to rampage." Generally Penelope's first instinct when she was scared was to either kick at whatever spooked her, or try to squish it. That's why Rory loved her. She was broken, but she wasn't a coward. At the moment, however, neither of those was a good prospect for the screaming child. Rory didn't think, she just launched herself over the barrier.

When her feet hit the ground, it wasn't with the heavy clunk of a teenaged girl in work boots, it was the light swish of padded feet. The crowd fell silent, stunned. A giant canine-like beast stood above the screaming toddler, its legs spread standing around it like a protective house. It was long-legged with burly shoulders and a long snake-like tail that dragged on the ground. It had some resemblance to a giant hyena, uneven with a giant barrel chest and powerful shoulders, its back legs dwarf-like in comparison. It's head was massive and somehow reptile-like, and it hissed, throwing it's ears back, displaying rows of narrow teeth and giant canines.

Penelope charged, eyes white with fear, and the thing, that could only be described as a monster met her halfway, angling it's head down and intercepting the charge, sending the elephant flying to the left. She landed on her side, completely confused, and quick as a blink, Rory was back, miniature in comparison to the massive nightmare that had been in her spot moments before. Slowly, deliberately, with shaking hands she picked up the child and turned to the crowd. Her pupils were tiny and her hair fell free of the braid, framing her face in a wild expanse of undulating orange curls. Even from the distance it was easy to see the heavy rise and fall of her chest, the rivulets of sweat falling down her face.

It was deathly silent. She took slow, controlled steps over to the railing. The crowd moved back for every step she took forward, desperately trying to get out of her way. Holding the child on her hip, she climbed the railings easily and then dropped her down to the ground gently. Still looking dazed and insane, she spun around in a tight circle, not quite sure what to do. Then the first person started screaming. Rory snapped back into herself in an instant, pupils going back to their normal size. She spun around wildly now. Digital cameras, smart phones, canon camera's all aimed at her from all sides. Her gut twisted. The room spun, it was getting hard to breathe.

Without wasting another moment she slammed into the crowd, pushing her way past and took off in a blind panic. What had she done?

* * *

If you would believe it, it was even easier to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D systems the second time around. It was like they wanted Tony to get into their private files. Were they even trying? Tony had locked himself in the lab again, sifting through the files they had documenting other such "super heroes" such as themselves. It was scary how closely these people were monitored without knowing. S.H.I.E.L.D had spies in their work place, cameras in the home, even phone taps. Not for the first time, he was thankful for Jarvis. They would get a nasty surprise to the tune of their entire network being attacked by the worst virus Tony Stark could compile if they ever tried to hack into his systems. Just basic security procedures, you know. The usual.

The plan was to find someone who fit, and somehow snatch them out from under S.H.I.E.L.D's nose without making it look suspicious. He'd found a few likely candidates, but everyone was monitored so closely. He'd be in a lot of shit if he showed up and their house and was videotaped asking them to join. He was too well-known. They all were. Fury would know what he was up to in a second.

Tony had set his phone to alert him of any changes to the files and planned to bide his time until he got a chance that he could work with. And biding his time he had for the better part of two weeks, thankfully a quiet two weeks, all things considered. Of course, in this city a few weeks of peace was more likely just the quiet before the storm.

Two weeks was enough of a quiet period for Steve, Tony, and Clint to nurse their bruises, which was just in time for them to get new ones, generally. Natasha was back in the house as well, and all mum about what she had been doing while away. Tony could have found out in a click with his new access to the S.H.I.E.L.D files, but frankly he didn't want to know exactly how many people his friend had killed last week – if that is what Fury still had her doing.

Nope, he was fine sifting through files, monitoring their progress. He'd read all of the information on all of them over tens of times, but he was obsessed. Tony could never sit still until he solved something. His problems took up his every waking moment, a side effect of being a perfectionist all his childhood in an attempt to appease his cold father. Later it was from trying to prove that he was every bit the genius Howard Stark had been after he took over Stark Industries. Now it was just habit.

Tony was considering taking a lunch break when a ping went off in the system. Immediately he brought the clip up, a red blinking video file from security footage at what looked like a zoo. He smiled, and dragged the alert to his phone. "Jarvis, keep me posted on S.H.I.E.L.D's response. I want to know if they so much as mention the Bronx zoo, got it?"

"Affirmative sir,"

Tony threw on a leather jacket and some shades, grabbing a pair of keys off of his pegboard.

Game on.

* * *

**A/N: **I haven't slept yet so instead of going to bed I'm on skype and rereading over this before I upload it. It's 11 am and I'm still awake what do :c Thanks to everyone who reviewed and favorited and even those who just popped in to look. I was having a really bad day and I saw the responses and it cheered me up a lot c: And there's Rory…in all her perpetually moody glory. Thanks as always to the perfection that is my beta LadyofMischefandDeduction 3


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Marvel Universe. Nothing belongs to me except a few OC's

**Summary: **The Avengers are shorthanded and the team is falling apart. Tony hatches a plan and Rory could be the answer to their prayers, if a certain Norse God doesn't get to her first. Choosing sides isn't easy when the darkness is so appealing. Staying good is hard when you were born to be a monster. Eventual Loki/OC

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Rory tore through New York City, her tattered shoes eating up the pavement ravenously. At this point she wasn't worried about drawing attention to herself. There was more than enough security footage to incriminate her, and any staff member could pick out her trademark bushy red curls in an instant. She was caught, and there was nothing to do but get as far out of the city as humanly possible.

She wasn't worried about herself; she could disappear in and instant. It was just her father. She couldn't bring herself to run off and abandon him alone. She should have been out of the area, could have been miles away by now but instead she was circling back home. It was the first place they'd come looking, she was sure. It was stupid and illogical but she couldn't leave him there alone any more than she could have saved her own skin and left that kid to die.

Adrenaline pumped through her, driving her senses wild. She could feel the…the _thing _pressing on her consciousness, roaring with anger that he hadn't been able to run wild. She disliked letting it out to play, but even then she made sure she ran him dry instead of leaving him penned up, ready for the kill.

She couldn't handle the metro, could trust herself in a crowd while this monster still had a hold on half of her was the ultimate evolutionary machine, but it was evolution that was her weakness. She had about as much control over her forms as a rider had over a bucking warhorse. Her hold was tenuous at best, and even she couldn't overcome inbred instincts. Shifting back took as much mental effort as anything. She had to shift her consciousness back into a human place but sometimes it was so hard to remember who…why…

Her head pounded, sending her vision reeling as she paused at a corner, trying to remember how to read. For a moment, everything looked like insignificant squiggles. She thought of her dad, and was back in control. Four more blocks and a flight of stairs and she was at her front door, hands trembling violently. She paused, keys in her hand, and pressed her nose into the crack on the side of the door, inhaling deeply.

_Wrong, wrong, wrong. _The front of her nose became a mottled pink, wet and doglike. She inhaled again, nose filled with the overwhelming smell of home. She breathed in again with her new amplified sense of smell, this time concentrating on each individual scent.

The dull scent of yesterday's coffee hung in the air, amongst her father's smell and her own. The faint smell of lavender seeped through, and her eyes watered, remembering painful things. And then…a sharp electric metallic tang in the back of her mouth, making her eyes water. She pressed her nose closer and caught the scent of sour wine. _Wrong. _She frantically searched for a recent scent of her father, struggling to catch any aroma of fear, but her father's smells were flat. He was gone, and someone else, someone strange…someone new was in the kitchen. Someone new who was touching _their _things, reading into _their _secrets.

The beginnings of a growl hummed in the back of her throat. She slammed her key into the lock and turned, ramming the door with her shoulder as if flew open. The force of her push slammed the door against the opposite wall, and it flew back just as bad, almost slamming her in the face.

The hair on the back of her head was de-curling, forming a coarse thick coat. Her nose and lips stretched forward, slowly morphing into a muzzle. Her eyes were yellow and narrow.

Rory was truly a horrific sight as she rounded the corner into the kitchen, crouched over and ready to pounce. She'd become some kind of half human construction, her body slipping easily into the features of the beast from the zoo.

She hadn't known what to expect when she walked through the door, but it was safe to say that this would have never come to mind in a million lifetimes. The chair she'd fallen asleep in the night before was currently occupied by a grinning Tony Stark. Yes, _the _Tony Stark. Tony "aka the billionaire owner of Stark Industries, aka Iron Man" Stark. Tony Stark was in her kitchen, sitting her chair, sipping her orange juice from a tattered mug like her belonged there and _grinning _at her like they were friends.

She was stunned back into human form, for the moment her current predicament with the law entirely forgotten. She stared at him open mouthed for a few seconds, blinking. "Where's my Da?" she said finally, trying to recover from her shock by glaring him down.

"Aren't you going to ask while I'm here?" Tony tilted his head to one side, swishing the orange juice around in the cup. She wanted to smack the obnoxious Chesire-cat grin off of his face. Instead she turned around, balling her hands and letting out a scream of rage. She spun around to face him again, leaning over the table until their faces were only a foot apart. "You don't have your suit, do you? I could _end _you,"

"I know," Tony replied, seemingly unconcerned by her threats. "But you won't."

"Try me," she flexed her hand, and her fingernails tripled in length, tapering out to needle-sharp points.

"You won't," Tony circled around the table slowly, using it as a blockade to get himself out of arms reach of her claws. "You won't because without me, you won't find him." He jumped out of the way as she threw herself over the table, swiping at him. "And, and, and! And, I'm here to help you, Victoria."

"How do you know my…" she paused again, nails slowly shrinking. "Help me?" How did Tony Stark even know she existed? It was starting to be too much for her, this morning, the elephants, now _this. _She fell into a chair, grabbing her head. "I'm confused." She moaned, rubbing the base of her palms against her head roughly, as if that would chase the pain away.

Tony leaned over and reached into a briefcase she hadn't noticed sitting on the floor, pulling out a portable tablet…thing. He pressed a few buttons and a holographic image of a file folder floated up. He laid the tablet flat on the table and slit it towards him, his face as serious as she'd ever seen it. "It's all in your file,"

Victoria reached out hesitantly for the pad, and pulled it towards herself. The morphing had steadied her hands for a moment, but at this new information they started trembling again. She made a conscious effort to not let the pad shake too much, and if Tony noticed he didn't say anything. She touched the folder and jumped when it made a _blip _sound. She'd half expected her hand to pass through. She shot Tony a glance. Was this his technology? The billionaire seemed horrible at sharing all of his technology, not just his suit.

A moment later, the file opened, sending a hologram of images in between her and Tony. She took a step back, head reeling, and after a moment she realized that they were all of her. Her name, her with wings, her back in Washington, D.C, innocent and bright-eyed. She gasped and took a step back, her hands covering her mouth and the bridge of her nose.

"You've been under surveillance for years now. There are people above the CIA, above the FBI, above all government whose job it is to contain people with your…skill set… when they become a threat."

"What do you want with me?" She hissed at Tony, hands quivering at a violent rate now. She brought her hands down to wrap them around herself, and folded herself into the smallest corner of the kitchen she could find, as far away from Tony as possible.

"I want to help you…but I need you to help me," Tony stood up and walked a circle around the table, thinking. "Rory – can I call you Rory?" The redhead simply blinked at him. "I'm going to be honest with you, because I want you to trust me. And I'm going to trust that what I say to you won't leave this room, because I honestly think you'll agree with my idea, ok?" Tony clapped his palms together and pressed his fingertips to his chin. For the moment, he was a businessman, not the playboy making a mess all over the tabloids all of the time. Rory was reminded that this man managed one of the most profitable industries on the planet, and he knew how to sell an idea.

"SHIELD, the people who have been essentially stalking you, is going to be here in – how long until they drop down, Jarvis?"

"Approximately twenty minutes and thirty-eight seconds, sir," came a cheery British butler voice from Tony's cell phone and the unidentified tablet. Rory jumped and prickled at the sound.

"Twenty minutes and thirty-eight seconds. I don't know what they're going to do with you, or where they're going to take you. My team, the Avengers…you might have heard of us, big _big _tower in the middle of New York? The Chutari invasion? I threw the nuke into space? No…doesn't matter. We're a bit…spread thin at the moment and I don't know what to do about it. I've hacked into SHIELD systems. I've seen your file," he gestured towards the table. "You're got serious power, I know you do."

Tony turned back to the tablet and pressed a button, bringing up the lone clip from moments ago, at the zoo. She saw herself holding the sniffing child close, as if it was a lifeline. "I know you have in it you to help people."

"No, no no no no," Rory lunged forward at once. She'd caught onto where Tony was going with this and she wanted no part of it. Her plan had been to lay low, live her life in relative squalor until her father was better or he..he…she couldn't even think of it. Sitting in the public eye, running around in spandex smashing things was in no way her idea of fun. _Hell _no.

"I'm going to help you disappear for a bit, lie low. But I want you to help me by letting me train you as the new Avenger."

Tony had barely finished his sentence before he got a mouthful of red hair. Rory swung around in a circle and grabbed a duffle bag out of the bottom kitchen cabinet, stomping past him. "I'll take my chances with these SHIELD guys, I think."

She began stuffing all of the cans in the pantry into the bag, and then stormed around him again in a puff of fiery orange as she headed towards the stairs to her room. Tony waited patiently as, moments later, she returned, looking murderous. "Where's all of our stuff?" She chucked the can-filled duffle-bag at him, and Tony twisted to the side, remembering with a grin that the last time he'd done that move he'd been dodging weights at his own house party.

"Well _your _stuff is at the Avengers Mansion. All of it. Your father's stuff is in my house at Malibu, with him," Tony paused, chipping off a bit of paint from the cheap wallpapered kitchen walls thoughtfully. "As well as a full-time nurse and medical staff that will be happy to step aside if you want to drag him through the wilderness as you run from the law."

Victoria stared him down, and he wasn't sure for a second if she was going to yell at him or simply knock him out of a window. He held her gaze squarely, and after a second or two she looked away, deflating. "I have what you need, and you have what I need."

Rory sighed, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling as if sending off a prayer to some deity. How could she not? How could she walk away now, knowing that she could have had a cushy stay with a billionaire, and given her father the medical care she'd dreamed of for years and just walk away from it because of her own uncooperative nature? She'd promised herself she'd do whatever it took to keep her last living family safe and if it took living with Tony Stark to do that, who was she to turn it down? He knew as well as she did that her father was a trump card that she would never overcome.

She let loose another long-suffering sigh. Her moan lifted into a childish whine and she all but stamped her feet as she closed the distance between them, extending a hand. "Okay," she murmured, refusing to look him in the eye. My, my, my how things could change in just a few hours. Guess this means she would be late for work tomorrow, heh.

Tony shook her hand firmly, grinning. He led her out the back door into the alleyway, where'd he'd parked his sports car, which looked obtusely out of place in the dingy apartment parking lot. Rory insisted on curling up in the back seat instead of riding in the front, content to drift off in the leather air-conditioned heaven until they reached her new home. Tony went on and on about how great it would be, how much she would _love _the view, how he built and designed it and then _rebuilt _it, how much _fun _it was going to be. She stopped listening for the most part, tuning in only enough to know when she needed to nod her head. "It'll feel like home once you get used to it, I promise,"

Victoria sniffed haughtily, burying her face into the seats. "I'm sure. In case you haven't noticed, adapting is kind of my _thing,_"

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry this took so long! I struggled a bit with writing this, and I'm still not really happy with it, but I'm a crazy perfectionist so here you go! There may be a week or two until the next chapter. I'm taking a ton of AP classes and I waited until the last second like an idiot and weeeehhh :c I answer every PM and review I get, even if it's just one or two words so leave one! It makes me write faster c:


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Marvel Universe. Nothing belongs to me except a few OC's

**Summary: **The Avengers are shorthanded and the team is falling apart. Tony hatches a plan and Rory could be the answer to their prayers, if a certain Norse God doesn't get to her first. Choosing sides isn't easy when the darkness is so appealing. Staying good is hard when you were born to be a monster. Eventual Loki/OC

* * *

The soft shudder of the engine shutting down woke Victoria with a start. For a moment, she forgot where she was. Then the smells – sour wine, a splash of cologne, motor oil, and fresh leather – reached her, dragging with it a fresh memory of everything that'd happened today. That's right; she was in a car, Tony's car. Going to live with Tony Stark because the government was after her for showing off her freakish powers at work. She remembered, and immediately got a headache. It was one of _those _days.

"We're here. Casa del Superhero," Tony reached over her, opening her passenger door from the driver's side with a shove that invaded every personal space rule that was ever written. They were in some sort of concrete garage. It was just a normal garage, architecturally speaking. Concrete and gray, not at all what she would have expected of something Tony claimed to have designed. Where were the holographic servants? The hovercars? There was a diverse array of automobiles, however. She spotted a red mustang convertible and a smart car with half of the engine removed a few parking spaces over…and was that…was that the Mystery Machine? Did this guy just throw his money away? She was unimpressed. Mystery Machine and Dark Knight Bat Mobile Replica they may be, but hover cars they were not.

The ginger threw her legs out of the open door, eyeing Tony darkly as he got out of the car and walked around his side, suit jacket tucked under his arm. For a moment he stood in front of the car, looking around uncertainly for the first time since she'd come across him. He checked a watch on his wrist, and then let out a low whistle. "Um…to the lab then, I guess."

Rory frowned. She'd expected that the next logical step would be to, well _meet _the team. She wasn't even quite aware of who was on the Avengers Squad or whatever, aside from Tony and Captain America. Tony she knew from the newspapers, and Captain America…well he was Captain America. Steve Rodgers was as much of an icon as Harry Potter, or Oprah Winfrey. She kind of wanted to meet the guy, just on principle. Also, it would be nice to know if she was bunking up with a bunch of psychos before she got in too deep to consider taking her chances as a cross-country fugitive again.

"To the lab for what, exactly?" She asked, running to catch up with Tony. An image passed through her head of him stooping over her in a lab coat, watching her and she squirmed on a lab table. She passed the image away with a shiver. He'd taken off at a brisk walk in what she assumed as the direction of his lab, shooting the occasionally appreciative glance at a collector's edition car. He patted one on the hood as he passed, grinning. "Afternoon, gorgeous," She rolled her eyes. So he flirted with his cars. Weird.

"Ummmmmmmm….." Tony drew out the word for several seconds, never pausing in his half-trot to the lab, checking his watch once again.

"Um what, exactly?" she followed behind him as close as she could. She was shorter than even him, and it took all of her focus to keep up with Tony's longer legs.

He let out a really long sigh as he reached an elevator, jamming the buttons roughly. "Well, the answer to that is kind of complicated, Rory,"

"Victoria."

"Rory. Let's see, ummmm…" He began slamming his finger onto the up button with an almost ferocious violence.

Victoria shoved him from behind, putting as much force behind it as she could. He barely twitched. Damn her size "You're stalling aren't you?"

"Yup! Elevator's here!" He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the metal box with her before she decided she'd rather take her chances jumping over the lot railing to safety.

Victoria folded her arms as the elevator closed, sinking down into a corner and frowning, the very picture of a displeased adolescent. She looked like a spoiled child and she knew it, but she was too stubborn to stand up straight. She wanted answers, and since she couldn't control Tony, her only source of information at the moment, she resolved to pout about it instead.

She'd had so much power hours ago. She'd had a choice. She _could _have quit her job, _could _have left that kid there, _could _have turned Tony down and took off for the New Jersey coastline. But she'd chosen to go to work today, to fuck up, and then to fuck up again and sign her life away to the brunette tech-hero devil in exchange for medical care, and now there were no more options for her. She could frown, and pester Tony as much as she wanted to, and she would because that was all she could do now. She knew as well as he did that she had no choice but to follow him around for the time being. It pissed her off, honestly.

She reached out a thin leg, noticing for the first time that the sole of her combat boots was hanging off at the bottom. Slowly, she slid downward until her foot touched the opposite wall of the elevator. The billionaire was watching her, but she ignored him, pissed that he was holding information from her. She stayed like that, in a ridiculous horizontal slide, skin crawling under his gaze as the elevator slid downwards slowly. She was starting to feel claustrophobic, and irritable.

"What?" She finally snapped, turning her head sharply to stare Tony Starks down. He was smiling, and again she wanted to startle that carefree grin off of his face.

"It's nothing," Tony replied, coughing into his sleeve in a way that made her think he was covering up a laugh.

She swallowed down a nasty remark and instead grunted as a form of reply. Grunts were great. She could grunt all she wanted and let the world know that she was irritated without actually having to face the repercussions of a rude remark.

"Eloquent," Tony sighed the words out, checking his watch again anxiously. "Ladylike,"

Rory blew a raspberry, demonstrating her thoughts on ladylike behavior as eloquently as her previous bodily sound. "Are you waiting for someone?" She straightened up, pointedly glancing at Tony's wristwatch. _Is that solid gold?_ She peered again. She decided that it was gold for no reason other than she couldn't come up with a reason why this man would need a cheap watch.

"Waiting implies that I'm looking forward to a visitor. Visitor, yes. Several of them actually, not that they'll be very happy to see me. Come on!" As if on cue, the elevator doors opened and Tony shot out like a bullet, pulling her after him for a few moments until he made sure that she was following behind him. Rory ran her hands down the walls by the staircase as she trudged down behind tony, wondering what he meant by visitors. Did he mean the rest of the freaks, or the assassin network that was apparently out for her blood? Was this some kind of race to safety?

To her surprise, the lab was fairly normal looking, more like a really clean auto shop with a kitchen than the maniac test center she'd visualized. Well, it looked relatively normal until Tony ran around clapping his hand and woke up some kind of blue hologram computer system that covered the entire room. Rory jumped back from the floating screens, grabbing onto a table as if it touching the system was going to electrocute her.

"No, no, no don't do that, come here," Tony waved her over to where he was rummaging through a desk for something. Slightly suspicious still, Rory made her way over to him slowly. He was giving off serious crime-in-progress vibes in his own house, and she didn't know quite what to make of it. Tony grabbed her by her shoulders and pushed her backwards away from the desk. Before she could say anything or shake her grip off he was pushing buttons on some kind of pocket remote. She'd opened her mouth to question him again but all that came out was a high-pitched shriek as about a half ton of ice cold water dumped itself over her head from a sprinkler.

"What the f-" Victoria started to screech through chattering teeth, but Tony cut her off as he flicked open a pocket knife. She took a step back, arms already growing hair, but instead of stabbing her through the chest, Tony merely grinned at her, his brown eyes amiable as always. "Chill out," He replied, and with two quick slashes, he made two thin slices in here shirt. "Muss up your hair a bit…more," he instructed with a quick jerk of his wrist. She noticed too late that her jacket sleeve in his hand, and the force of him pulling on her arm ripped the sleeve of her hoodie off. She did as instructed and ran her hands through her hair, shagging it. She'd caught the drift of where this was going, and took the incentive to rub her eyes on her arm, effectively smudging her eyeliner. She raised her eyebrows for Tony's approval, biting back questions, and he took a step back and nodded, looking her up and down. "Perfect."

Tony jogged over to his desk and pulled out a spare cloth, "Dry yourself off a bit. They'll be here in a second and I need you to trust me and _let me talk,"_

"Who'll be here?"

"The Avengers, and they don't know you're here yet so shush, and try and look pathetic. I'm going to need you to channel the spirit of an orphaned kitten, or something to that effect. Cute and helpless,"

"I don't do helpless."

"Then try cute, it suits you," he winked.

"Are you flirting?" Not amusing, to say the least.

"It relaxes me."

Victoria sighed, and mopped at her face with the rag, resigning herself that she had, for all rights and purposes, sold her soul and put her life in the hands of a man who may or may not be mentally stable.

"The genius here, my dear Rory-"

"Victoria."

"_Rory." _Tony made his way to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of brandy. He tipped the brown liquor into a cop with a tanned hand and the expertise of a practiced alcoholic, so confident in his muscle memory that he didn't bother to check to see when the glass was full. His eyes never left hers. "I can't be brilliant loudly and in great detail if my audience insists on interrupting me," he paused a moment, waiting for her indignant reply, but when none came (to his surprise, she'd been awful compliant after she'd agreed to join forces with him) and when none came he continued his barrage of words as a listening, albeit grudging, Rory looked on. "We have to let them think that this was their idea."

"We?" Rory muttered "Their?" She was just quiet enough that Tony could pretend that he couldn't hear her – and he did pretend, continuing to speak as if she hadn't said a word. Already they were learning each other: how Tony needed an audience as much as he needed his winery in Rome or his gadgets, how she needed to be belligerent and rebellious in order to keep her pride. Tony paced, accentuating every word with a jovial swing of his arms, sometimes so violently presidential and enthusiastic that he threatened to throw off his own equilibrium (impressive, considering how near to the ground he was).

"This thing about you joining the team? Stays between us, okay? As far as everyone else knows, you ran in front of my car on the way here, and I'm letting you stay out of the kindness of my heart. Help the youth and all that," Tony went on circling, arms behind his back and head down. Rory had a strong suspicion that he was making it up off of the top of his head. Tony looked up, and she glanced down quickly, arranging her soaked flannel shirt with muddy nails, looking every bit like a bored delinquent. God forbid that he think she cared, that she was actually worried about what she was getting herself into. She couldn't get that image of the hologram file out of her head. What if they'd tracked her? What else did they know? It chilled her that some strange web of superspies could know things about her, perhaps things she didn't even know about herself.

"So I'm not on the team?" She asked, dumbfounded, arms crossed. She could live with this. This was ideal, actually. The less time she had to spend running around in spandex and being polite to civilians the better for her sanity. She wasn't even sure if the catchy superhero banter was a thing outside of the comic-book world. She imagined herself in hot pink, throwing a baddie into a candy display _Looks like you're behind bars! Mars bars, that is! _There was a reason she never got into comic books.

"No, you definitely are. Just not yet. We have to let them come up with it on their own, ok?"

"Ok…" Yeah, she definitely didn't get it. She didn't like following directions either, on principle. "But why not just tell them the plan and let them feel whatever kind of way they want to feel about it? They can't kick me out, this is _your _place."

Tony paused in his pacing to give her a genuine megawatt smile. "I knew I liked you. Just for that, you win,"

"Win what? What did I say?"

Tony peered at his watch again, this time looking more optimistic. "They should be back now, I think. Let's go say hi!"

"To who? I'm lost, and back from where? To here?"

"Why, the Avengers of course! Shawarma and yes. "

"Shawarma?"

"_Shawarma."_

* * *

**Authors Note: **Hi all! It's been a while. I'm horribly sorry. College applications and school got in the way, and I hit the _worst _writers block. This was kind of a filler chapter to establish Rory and Tony's kind of companionship, which will be important later. Plot moves along next chapter, and if it all works well structurally, Loki should be showing up as well. Thanks to all of you that stuck with me through the hiatus! Also excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes. I'm in the process of finding a new beta.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Marvel Universe. Nothing belongs to me except a few OC's

**Summary: **The Avengers are shorthanded and the team is falling apart. Tony hatches a plan and Rory could be the answer to their prayers, if a certain Norse God doesn't get to her first. Choosing sides isn't easy when the darkness is so appealing. Staying good is hard when you were born to be a monster. Eventual Loki/OC

**Author's Notes: **I usually put this at the end but I really want to apologize for taking so long to put out another chapter. I had a lot of trouble getting around a certain scene and while trying to figure out how I wanted that scene to go I noticed a lot of things I really didn't like about my storyline. Then I tried to fix it, and got stuck again. I was actually planning on scrapping this and starting over but I remembered that I wanted to write a fanfiction to prove to myself that my perfectionist attitude in writing wouldn't stop me from finishing something that I wrote for once. So alas, I'm going to continue and not be so hard on myself. As long as you guys enjoy this and I enjoy writing it I'm not going to agonize over little details and ruin everything. Thanks for anyone who stuck around. You guys rock for dealing with me and my crap.

* * *

He awoke choking on his own blood. The dull throb of his bitten tongue was welcome to his conscious mind. Better this ache than the constant agony of sleeping. In his dreams his enemies found revenge. He woke up unbroken every morning, but that didn't ease the pain as he was ripped apart limb from limb in his nightmares. There was a fear that one day he wouldn't wake up, that one day they would have him and no one would be able to hear his cries for mercy. Even scarier still that he sometimes wished for it. A part of him wanted to be found, punished, and removed from the world that loathed him nearly as much as he loathed himself.

His short-lived attempt to conquer mankind had left his victims with a fleeting image of the would-be King of Midgard – haggard and tired, wide eyed and unstable. A madman with magic. Over the months he'd become creature more likely to evoke pity than fear. He coughed harshly from iron-laced bed, flying upright with the force of the air spewing from his lungs. He grabbed at his neck with slender pale fingers, realizing in the daylight that he wasn't dying. Another nightmare. It was getting hard to tell when he was sleeping from his daylight terrors.

How far the mighty shall fall. Loki Laufeyson, once called Silver-tongue, once a prince, had fallen farther than most. He was scared, so very scared. Even more than that he was forgotten. He'd become blight on society that everyone wished to be rid of. There was perhaps one in the entirety of the universe that still cared, and his brother had abandoned him months ago. The look in Thor's eyes when he'd stuck a blade in his gut had been a cleaner severing of any family obligations than any war on earth could be. It was over. He was over. Trapped, bound, and locked away in a dungeon box so deep in the bowels of Asgard that his screams in the night remained trapped below thousands of tons of stone and granite. He dared not even scheme his way out, knowing that Odin's gaze was never far from his dwellings. The Asgardian King had learned not to underestimate the lengths his adopted son would go to complete his deranged quest for power. He would not let his gaze wander without good reason.

Loki tumbled off of the iron slate of a bed with an uttered "_oomf" _landing on the floor in a rather ungraceful lump. He kept one arm on the bed, using it as leverage to lift himself to his knees, and then his feet. He hadn't gotten out of bed in a long time, too long perhaps. There was some kindness in the mortal's need for sustenance. They had to leave the bed sometime. They had to get up, or die. He could lie for centuries unbidden without any adverse effects, and by the stars he'd tried. His days were a blur of night horrors and the agony of a prison cell, but near catatonic waste had one advantage: time. The lost prince had had months to think, to analyze, and he'd come to one conclusion. Nothing, not Asgard, not his family, not his prison sentence, or the location of his body was going to stop his former allies from wreaking their revenge. As long as he stayed here he was vulnerable. The God of Mischief was no warrior. Ultimately, he'd like to stay alive if it was possible, for as long as possible. So, you see, this sentence really wasn't going to work for him.

All this pondering, however, had failed to give him some kind of way to actually _get out. _From what he could tell his metal square of a jail had no way in or out. There were no windows, no loose panels, no possible way for magic to penetrate the walls that were possibly yards thick. The All father had taken all precautions, and was vigilant in his watch over the little Frost Giant, he was sure.

Loki heaved himself to his feet. He had to steady himself on the wall for a moment, but it would take longer than a half a year to degrade his muscle mass. He was fine, he'd be fine. No cunning of his would be able to hide from the searching eyes of the All-Father. Odin would not look away from his trickster heir as long as there was no one else to watch over him. Unless…-hmm.

Unless.

* * *

So she was dragged, wet and ripped apart, looking every part the tragic female damsel in distress, up a flight of stairs. The vice-grip on her arm belonged to the muscles of the world's most famous multi-billionaire who, by the way, was really strong for a guy who was probably the shortest Y-chromosome holder in any given room. She should have really been nervous about this whole _meeting people _thing, and the fact that she still wasn't quite clear on what the plan was (or if they were ever operating on a plan). Instead, she was going with a "why the hell not?" attitude and just going with it.

Tony pulled her into the elevator they'd come in on, finally releasing her arm once the doors closed. He pressed some button, but she didn't bother to look up from the ceiling panel she'd focused her gaze on, only barely catching the motion out of the side of her eye. She wanted to ask him for clarification on what she was walking into, but her pride stopped her. She desperately wanted to look like she knew what was going on. Hopefully she was displaying some kind of collected certainty, with a hit of disinterest. She didn't want to betray her lack of control with questions. She was blatantly aware that she was outclassed here. Not only was she the youngest by far, but Tony alone outranked her in fame, wealth, social standing, intelligence, and sexual promiscuity. She was gripping with the tips of her fingers to a little ledge of demanded respect, and she wouldn't give away that position for a second to let him know that she wasn't as together as she seemed. She'd rather die than lose face.

With a jolt, the metal elevator gates slid open, and a twinkling of voices and noise tumbled out from the hallway. The unlikely duo stepped out, this time Victoria walking of her own accord as curiosity propelled her forward. She slowed her steps to let Tony take the lead, spitting on her hand and flattening down her hair while his attention was diverted. She made a quick motion similar to one she might use to wipe her nose on her sleeve, but angled her upper arm up so that she wiped her face off a bit. It crossed her mind that changing the game-plan from her being presented as a chance saved victim to a polished superhero primed to join was going to leave with a horrible impression. Ripped clothes and soaking wet hair were not a professional make. Again, she wanted to mention it to Mr. Stark but she was sure he'd already considered that. Or he just didn't care. Was there any record of playboy Tony Stark ever caring about anything? She'd look into it.

Stark turned the corner into the kitchen cheerfully, nearly strutting and whistling. Utterly at ease, he leaned in the doorway, taking in a deep breath and grinning. "Afternoon, all!" Something in the right of the room caught his view and Tony's grin widened. "Hey, Bruce! Nice to see you're back! How were the islands?"

"What've you been up to?" the slightly suspicious voice of a woman eased out of the doorway to Victoria's ears.

"Oh nothing." Tony replied, sounding very much like he was up to something. Victoria was beginning to characterize Tony Stark as very much a large, over privileged naughty child with lots and lots of toys. "Tweaking the suit, going over some charts….making some new friends." He lifted his arm a bit higher in it's lean on the kitchen doorway, and Victoria took that moment to step from behind him into the open gap and into everyone's visual field.

Her brown eyes darted around the room hungrily, trying to take everything in at once. Her gaze landed first on the woman she'd heard speaking before, a sultry red-head leaning in the opposite doorway, leading to what looked like a living room area. Though relaxed with her arms crossed and a slight frown, she exuded this type of energy reminiscent of something feline. She was reminded of watching a domestic cat go from mid-nap to a fast skitter across the room in mere seconds. More than anything, she noticed the deep red and soft waves of her hair. Self-consciously Rory patted her own hair down again, thinking resentfully of her own wild orange locks.

Clutching a cup of tea tightly sat another man, again with that sense of powerful energy just waiting under the surface. Unlike the redhead, however, he was a smaller and more mousy-looking man with glasses and a lab coat. He didn't look like he was capable of anything more complicated than reading or stuttering and she dismissed him as the awkward scientist type. Definitely not a super hero. Also at the table was a rather muscular handsome blonde man. He was the All-American type and she recognized him instantly from the history books – Steve Rogers aka Captain America. The world's first superhero.

The third person in the room was a rather short and stocky man with well-muscled arms. He was clutching some type of food in a brown wrapper and taking a huge bite out of it with his eyes locked on Victoria. Determined, she stared at him right back, taking in his short cropped hair and giving a sort of silent approval to the fact that he was choosing to sit on the kitchen counter to eat instead of somewhere more orthodox.

"Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Steve" Tony began, waving an arm to the man on the table, the mousy gentleman, and the sultry redhead respectively, "this is Victoria Cooper."

Steve gave her a polite nod and a smile. "Nice to meet you, ma'am."

Clint raised his eyebrows, taking another bite. Bruce avoided her gaze entirely, and Natasha's frown deepened. "Temporary visitor?" Clint ventured around his food, barely stopping to chew before he spoke.

"More like a…permanent addition." Tony responded, folding his hands behind his back and rocking his heels. He looked every bit the multi-billionaire businessman and nothing like the troublemaker Victoria knew he was.

"Addition to what, exactly?" Natasha asked, looking every bit more suspicious by the second. If he face got any sterner it was going to turn to stone and fall to the floor. Victoria could feel an irrational dislike for this Natasha start to burn in her belly. Steve looked around, looking fairly uncomfortable at the fact that nobody else was being nice to their guest.

"The Avengers," Tony responded nonchalantly, still smiling. There was an implied _duh _at the end of his sentence. The room went silent. Victoria twitched as all eyes fell to her, rubbing her arms nervously. After a few moments of tension she couldn't bear it anymore and scanned the room for an excuse to leave. She could tell that they wanted something from her, something heroic or brilliant to assure them that Tony hadn't lost what was left of his mind, and she had nothing to give them because frankly, she thought this was a horrible idea too.

"Wow, look at that? Is that…pizza? I'm starving…" she pushed past Tony and grabbed a slice of pizza from the open box on the counter and stepped past Natasha into the other room. She thought that was far enough out away so that they could talk freely, but still close enough that she could hear what was being said. _Coward's exit stage right. The scene continues. _

"Tony, are you drunk?" Banner spoke first, his voice soft and concerned. He looked anxiously at the coffee machine, as if expecting the need to get Tony a cup.

"Absolutely, but I think we all know that that doesn't affect my worth ethic."

"You can't possibly be serious," deadpanned the ginger, sounding far less than impressed at this presumed practical joke.

"As a heart attack," Rory could _feel _the obnoxious smirk behind those words.

"No disrespect, but I don't think this is a good idea, Stark, just think-" Steve begun quietly, but Natasha nearly drowned out his words in her exasperation.

"You can't just let people live here at random, Stark. This isn't a game. We're a final response team for intergalactic war, not some kind of reality show house. To give someone that level of clearance you'd have to go straight through SHEILD and the International-"

"What is she like, sixteen, seventeen years old at the most?" that one was Clint, who sounded less than bothered by any of this.

Victoria carried her pizza by hand back to the kitchen doorway, slightly irritated. She was getting kind of tired of this whole big deal about the deal she'd made with Stark. "If you must know, I'm nineteen, nearly twenty. And it's Tony's house. If he says I can live here then that's the end of it, right? He's a genius or something, so he probably knows what he's doing, I'd think. Seems like sense, yeah?"

Her outburst was again, met with a few moments of silent. Tony gave her a slight nod and a grin, Banner shrugged, and Clint and Natasha exchanged a long and indecipherable look between themselves. _Spooky twin-telepathy stuff going on, alright. _Natasha broke Clint's gaze only to throw a look at Tony. It was obvious that this discussion wasn't over. Victoria buried all of her apprehension down and tried her best to keep her face blank. Throughout this all Steve maintained a look of a serious inner war going on, as if he really had something to say but didn't think it was his place to object.

Clint was the first to break the silence this time. Dragging his eyes from Tony to Victoria slowly he wrapped up his food back in its brown wrapper and put it in his lap. "So what is it that she-you do?" he changed his words at the last second, realizing that he should probably address Victoria directly rather than speak about her like she wasn't there.

Victoria looked to Tony for help, who nodded again. Presumably he knew all about her from whatever was on that black file, but he wanted her to be the one to explain it. "Well, I think it's called bi-morphing. Bi-morphing and mimicry. If it's living I can kind of change shapes to match it. New shapes take time, and ones I use a lot are nearly instantaneous." She glanced at Tony again, who nodded in encouragement. Victoria stood a little bit straighter and patted down her hair again, painfully aware that they were all waiting for her to talk. "It's not just animals and people either, I can make up whatever I want, but that's a little tricky because it all has to work and I don't sit around inventing muscle structures and internal systems that make sense on imaginary creatures. It's a great deal of effort, really." She paused again, and circled her gaze around the room. The looks ranged from unimpressed to disapproving. She felt a need for some kind of live demonstration, as if maybe that would convince them.

"See," Tony seemed like a considerable victim, because she'd been around him the longest. Victoria rolled her shoulders and hunched down a bit. When she stood back up her spine was straight and her chin proud yet somehow casual. She shook out her wrists and then clasped them loosely behind her back and raised an eyebrow in a look reminiscent of a mischievous mood. From across the kitchen it was clear that she was mimicking Tony's posture with acute precision.

Slowly, her shoulders broadened and her hair receded, turning from orange to black as if it'd been dipped in ink. She rolled her shoulders and as they came around bones popped and masculine muscles appeared. Her expression filled in on the lines of Tony's face, and a blink revealed that her cold brown eyes were now a lighter, more jovial amber color, and practically sparkling with personality. A shake of the shoulders and her own clothes rippled into Tony's own casual jeans and a band t-shirt. Within a matter of seconds the teenage girl was completely indistinguishable from the middle-aged man standing across the room.

As the assembled superhero's watched, the fake Tony's hair and eyes changed to a plethora of colors rapidly, from pink to blue to green to everything else on the color scale. Unlike the gradual change into Tony, Victoria's return to her own shape would have been missed in the span of a blink, and without any warning the petite ginger was back in front of them, face neutral as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

"I mean, I know that Clint and you pride yourselves on being super spies and what not, but you've got to admit that she presents a level of stealth and versatility that we'd never be able to reach without her on our side." Tony, ever the business man, pointed out. Though still frowning, even Natasha nodded a little bit, relenting that at least Victoria was better than she in this one field. Another moment of silence elapsed, with those present exchanging glances. Victoria was getting a feeling that there was a silent undercurrent of meaningful looks going around about her, and she really didn't like it.

"Well?" Victoria raised her voice a little. She was doing a horrible job of keeping the irritation out of her voice, and she felt the tension in the kitchen rise as a result.

"I understand that we're getting a little….stretched thin here, and it's been rough these past few months but…she's a little young for what we do, don't you think?" Bruce spoke barely above a whisper, and he never let his gaze drift from his cup, which was wafting a thick smell of coffee throughout the room.

"So?" Tony responded with a pointed glance at Natasha, who looked away. Clint tensed up a little, a change in body posture that Victoria was well acquainted to from work, and darted her eyes between Tony and Clint nervously. "She's young, but she's good. I've seen her at work, she's got good instincts." Tony was absolutely relaxed, perhaps even in his element. Victoria was a little lost. Good instincts? Boy, was he a good liar.

"As one of the guys who got the crud beat out of them by the Wrecking Crew, I'm not really in a place to complain about a new full-time Avenger-" Steve spoke this time, but he was cut off.

"Then don't complain."

"-_but _we're not an attack team, Tony. We're not here to beat the crud out of bad guys, we're here to keep people safe. That's the point. Protect Earth, Avenge it. There's more to being an Avenger than having superpowers."

Tony didn't say anything for a moment. Steve locked eyes with him, and the two engaged in another silent conversation. At this point Victoria was convinced that silent glare wars were the Avenger's main mode of communication. She could get used to that. She had a mean glare. Literally. It was pretty mean.

"I trust her, and you will too, eventually Steve. Until then, trust _me." _Steve turned his gaze to Victoria critically, and she tried desperately to look solemn and humble. She'd give her left foot to not have to be here, to be _anywhere _but under the scrutiny of these people.

The silence in the room became so thick; it was almost a separate solid figure. Steve held his ground for a few moments, and then with a big sigh, he raised his hands defensively. "Okay, Tony." He sighed, as if making the decision physically hurt him in some way. Victoria let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

"I still don't like this," Natasha unfolded her arm for the first time since they'd entered the room. She traded a glance with Steve, then Clint. "But if Steve's ok with this, then I guess we can give her a chance."

Clint shrugged, and tilted his head, taking another bite out of his food. Presumably that meant that he didn't care much either way. _I mean, it's not a no. _

All eyes turned to Bruce, who squirmed a little bit under their gaze. After a moment, he too conceded. "Just…don't kill the kid, Tony." He stood as he spoke, making his way towards the doorway. "I'm going to go run some data analysis in the lab, if you want to join later." He left soon after, patting Tony on the shoulder as he left. He didn't give a similar gesture to Victoria, much to her relief.

Tony clapped his hands together, businesslike. "Great. Now that that's settled, I'm going to put a movie on." He turned to Victoria, snapping his fingers at her. "You in?"

Victoria blinked, slightly caught off guard by the sudden change of energy in the room. "Uh…no thanks. I'll move in, I guess? Where'd you say my stuff was?"

Natasha, Clint, and Steve returned to whatever topic they'd been discussing before without any more than a slight blip. It was like the whole discussion had never happened. "Third floor storage room?" Tony offered. After seeing her blank glance, he offered to help her find her way around, but Victoria turned him down. She'd had more than enough help for today. More help than she'd ever need in a lifetime. She needed some time to sort herself out.

A couple of hours, maybe, but somehow she was getting the feeling that it would take a lifetime to shake off the trauma of being introduced to the Avengers.


End file.
